hms iron duke

Wednesday, 31 August 2016

Alphen,
Netherlands, 31 August. The website of the EU External Action Service states
that the “mission core mandate” of the EUNAVFOR MED Operation Sophia “…is to
undertake systematic efforts to identify, capture and dispose of vessels and
enabling assets used or suspected of being used by migrant smugglers or
traffickers, in order to disrupt the business model of human smuggling and
trafficking networks in the Southern Central Mediterranean and prevent further
loss of life at sea”. In the past
twenty-four hours European naval forces, together with up to forty other
agencies, have rescued close to 10,000 migrants, many from sub-Saharan Africa. Most have been picked up only 12 miles/20 kilometres
off the Libyan coast as the traffickers are now putting just enough fuel in their
horribly overloaded boats to get them outside Libyan territorial waters.

It is of course
vital all such souls are rescued. No-one should have to endure a slow, lonely,
drowning death in the middle of an alien sea and some 3000 people have already
died in the attempt. Nor should Europe try to erect a Trump-like and frankly
unworkable wall to keep migrants out. Equally, the strategic implications for
European society of this seemingly endless flow of human misery must be gripped,
reduced and its effects understood and mitigated.

Let me deal with
the strategic implications for European society first because that is what this
blog does, however uncomfortable. Those picked up off Libya are but the latest
of 110,500 migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean Sea between Libya and
Italy this year. Most of them are decent people who arrive in hope. When they
arrive in Italy will be given a medical check-up, registered, and then sent to
a migration centre where the process of seeking asylum begin. However, most migrants
do not want to stay in Italy, and in any case the process is so lengthy many lose
patience. They then drift northwards or sink into enforced Mafia-manipulated petty
criminality on the streets of Rome and other Italian cities. Others get trapped
on the Italian border with Austria, France and Switzerland, whilst many
eventually make it through with the help of local traffickers. They then head further
northwards towards Germany, the Netherlands and other Western European
countries, whilst others end up in ‘The Jungle’ trying to reach Britain.

The essential problems
are of scale and pace. Take those 110,500 who have made it to Europe this year.
By year’s end that means at least 150,000 migrants will have reached Europe. Add
this to the 1.1 million who went to Germany last year, together with those entering
Europe via other routes, some 2 million people will have entered the EU illegally
in the past two years. At least 80% will remain in Europe either legally or
illegally, which means some 1.8 million people.

Experience
suggests that over time there will be political amnesties and almost all will be
granted the right to remain as European politicians buckle under the weight of
human rights legislation and ‘community’ appointed human rights lawyers. The
migrants will then be allowed to bring their families over, which means the
European population will grow by at least 8 million over the coming years
simply as a result of two years ‘business’ by traffickers. Given Turkey could
well break the deal agreed last March with the EU that figure could climb
rapidly.

Now, look forward
twenty years. Experience of mass imposed immigration does not suggest the
creation of harmonious multicultural societies. Trevor Phillips, former head of
the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission, even went as far this year to
suggest that ‘multiculturalism’ has failed. Rather, recipient societies become progressively
destabilised as migrant ghettoes form often with people who hold very different
values to liberal Europeans. This destabilisation is made worse by the fact
that the migration is so concentrated with most migrants wanting only to go to
some six Western European countries. These are societies already grappling with
the threat posed by ISIS as Chancellor Merkel admitted last month when she said
that ISIS fighters had entered Europe in the migration flow.

So, can the humanity
and security square be circled? Most reasonable Europeans understand that
migration cannot be completely stopped and that what Europe is witnessing is an
historic, structural shift in migration. However, Europeans do expect their leaders
to better manage the crisis, which they are not. Better ‘management’ would need
leaders to recognise first and foremost that the threat to European society
from such uncontrolled immigration is as great as that posed by ISIS, not least
because it is part and parcel of the same threat. Unfortunately, not only is
there a complete absence of any attempt to ‘manage’ the crisis, Europe’s
leaders would prefer Europeans pretend it was not happening, even if the
implications for Europe’s future are grave. It is in the political vacuum in
between which Trump-like populists exploit.

Europe’s leaders
must thus come together and craft the following agenda for systematic action: establish
a Europe-wide refugee policy (not a ‘common’ policy) that sees genuine asylum
seekers assessed quickly and distributed across the entire EU; open new routes
for legal, managed migration to Europe; deport humanely those that do not qualify
to remain, the message of returnees will act as a powerful deterrent to those
thinking of making a perilous journey; used language and dialect experts to
identify the home country of those who have deliberately ‘lost’ identity
papers; massively increase aid and development to those countries which are the
main source of economic migrants, and include education programmes and media
campaigns about the perils of making such a journey; do far more to integrate those
migrants that remain into European society so they begin to feel part of it;
face down the racists and their nostalgia-fuelled appeals to an ideal Europe that
never existed; and, above all, go after the traffickers wherever they are with
whatever it takes. These criminals are a clear and present danger to Europe’s
security.

The other day, in yet
another example of crass political naiveté, Chancellor Merkel pleaded with
Turks not to import their current rivalries into Germany. Sorry, but that is
precisely what happens when huge numbers of immigrants enter a liberal society.
There is every reason to believe that ten years hence if the current migration
flows continue at the current pace and scale Europe will look ever more like
the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa complete with all the same tensions and
hatreds. Plus, of course, the anger that will be felt by many Europeans as they
wonder how on earth their leaders allowed things to get so bad.

Operation Sophia
is yet another example of all that is wrong with Europe’s pitiful attempts to
deal with big, dangerous, strategic change. Whether it be the ongoing Euro
crisis, the threats posed by Russia and ISIS, or society-bending
hyper-migration they all require grand strategy – the organisation of massive
means in pursuit of grand strategic ends over time and distance. The failure to
generate such strategy has already led the British to quit the EU (immigration
was the main driver), the effective failure of the border-free Schengen Zone,
and a profound loss of faith in Europe’s by and large incompetent and spineless
leaders.

Sadly, far from
disrupting the ‘business model’ of traffickers or protecting the external
borders of the EU, EUNAVFOR MED Operation Sophia aids and abets criminals, and
as such is little more than a migrant ferry service between Libya and Italy.

Thursday, 25 August 2016

Alphen, Netherlands. 25 August.
Calls for a European Army are a bit like my school bus of old; it could normally
and tediously be relied upon to turn up regularly, but never went anywhere
interesting. Indeed, ever since I wrote my doctorate on the subject many years
ago Groundhog Day calls for the creation of a ‘common’ European force have
surfaced and re-surfaced every time pressure mounts for Europe to do more to
defend itself. The problem is that no ‘common’ as opposed to a ‘collective’
force can exist without a European government, and unless the French have suddenly
become fans of scrapping France in favour of ‘Europe’ that ain’t going to
happen anytime soon. The latest calls emerged this week and, as is now
traditional for Europe’s leaders, Brexit is to blame. I never cease to be
amazed at the power of we British to be responsible for all of the EU’s woes
these days, from the anaemic, for that read no economic growth in the Eurozone,
to failure to develop a common asylum policy, to Europe’s inability to defend
itself. Fool Britannia!

This week’s Franco-German-Italian
meeting demonstrated all too clearly just how far Europeans are from creating a
European government AND thus a European Army. Prime Minister Renzi wanted more ‘security’
i.e. help with the refugees flooding into Italy, but as a friend of Russia
seemed little interested in defence. President Hollande, like all French
presidents when in trouble, called for more Europe’ to ward off Eurosceptic
challenges to his political left and right, but not too much more ‘Europe’. Like
all French presidents of the Fifth Republic Hollande does not actually want more
Europe if it means less France. Chancellor Merkel benignly (and it is benign
folks) and deliberately confuses more ‘Europe’ with more ‘Germany’ as she
desperately seeks to use the EU to separate much-needed German leadership from
not-much-needed German history. The one thing that they could all agree upon is
that we British are appalling.

Indeed, it was interesting to
watch the body language of the three of them on the Italian aircraft-carrier Garibaldi, soon to be massively and mightily
eclipsed by the first of the new ‘ours are far bigger than yours’ British Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft-carriers.
This was the theatre of togetherness replete, complete and ‘deplete’ with symbolic
adherence to the federalist thinking of Rossi and Spinelli and the 1941 manifesto
for the creation of a federal European state in which none of them actually
believes. Only Jean-Claude Juncker believes in such nonsense, as his comment this
week about borders being the worst political invention ever attests. I assume
Juncker means borders within Europe?

However, it is European defence again
where all this ‘faux-Europe’ nonsense is really being played out. This week
Bohuslav Sobotka, prime minister of the essentially Eurosceptic Czech Republic,
called for the idea of a ‘common’ European Army to be put on the agenda of
October’s post-Brexit EU summit, because unlike Renzi he really is worried
about Russia. Put aside for the moment Sobotka’s now common confusion between a
‘common’ force and a ‘collective’ force. In a speech he also called for a ‘joint’
European force, which is different from a common and to some extent a
collective force a la NATO. His argument appears to be that such are the
security and defence challenges faced by Europeans be it from mass uncontrolled
immigration, Russia or a combination of the two only a European ‘force’ could
possibly help control unwanted movement within the EU, and even more unwanted
movement into the EU.

Add ‘President Trump’ to that
mix. Whether it be President Clinton or President Trump, but especially if it
is President Trump, the days of Europeans free-riding on the Americans for
their security and defence are soon to be over. Add to that equation the coming
loss of Europe’s strongest military power from the EU’s Common (there they go
again) Security and Defence Policy and a form of mild panic is setting in in some
quarters.

The problem is
that the EU can be either vaguely solvent or vaguely defended, but it cannot be
vaguely both. The EU’s monetary and budgetary stability rules prevent the realisation
of NATO’s Defence Investment Pledge. As I wrote in my big paper for the NATO Warsaw
Summit “NATO: The Enduring Alliance: 2016” “Given that 18 EU member-states are…far
beyond the 3% budget deficit to GDP ratio enshrined in EU law…if the next US
administration demands that NATO Allies move towards the 2%/20% goals far more
quickly than the ‘within a decade’ specified in the Wales Summit Declaration…NATO
and EU members will likely find themselves trapped in a kind of political
no-man’s land between German-demanded austerity, EU deficit to GDP laws, and
American-driven demands for all NATO members to spend 2% GDP on defence”.

In reality,
calls for a European Army are not driven by the strategic imperative to
increase Europe’s military capability in the face of threats. Rather, they are a desperate attempt
to find a way to increase defence investment without actually spending more
money and thus breaking (again) EU rules. The idea is by ‘eradicating’
duplications and the inherent inefficiency of having 28, soon-to-be 27,
separate national European military establishments money could be found at the
cost of sovereignty. All well and good
on paper, but does not work in the current reality is unlikely to work in future
reality.

European
defence is lost in-between Europe’s in-betweeners: between the EU and the
member-states; between ‘common’ and ‘collective’; between strategy and politics;
between the EU and NATO; between capability and capacity; between soft and hard power; between deficit, debt and defence; between the strictures
of the European currency and the needs of European defence; and between Europe’s
past, present, and politically-uncertain
future.

At one level
Merkel, Hollande and Renzi are right to recall Rossi and Spinelli; the EU
cannot stay where it is right now and continue to function – it must either integrate
more deeply or disintegrate ever so gently. And, it may be that once we pesky
Brits are no longer sitting at the table in Brussels telling the rest of the EU
a ‘common’ defence simply will not work without a European government, at least
in President Putin’s lifetime, then Europeans will decide in time to handover
the whole Kitten Caboodle of Europe’s defence to the EU. However, until then
the whole debate on a European Army will be trapped between strategic reality
and political pretence, and Europe will remain trapped between ISIS, Russia and
a possible President Trump, and will thus be far more insecure than needs be.

Of course, the
alternative for Europe’s national leaders is right between their eyes; spend
more bloody money now on defence! Now, where’s that bus.

Monday, 22 August 2016

Alphen,
Netherlands. 22 August. Sixty-seven Olympic medals, of which twenty-seven are
gold, with Great Britain second in the medals table ahead of China. Anyone who
thinks sport and politics are somehow separate does not live on this planet.
However, there is and must always be a distinction made between the two.
Equally, I am not going for a moment to suggest that Team GB’s astonishing success at the Rio Olympics denotes some
moral and political superiority of the British nation, not least because there
is no such thing. It is precisely the making of such false connections, and the
nationalism it engenders that leads illiberal powers such as Russia to engage
in the state-sponsored doping of Olympic athletes. However, there are two sets
of strategic lessons that I believe must be heeded from both the London and Rio
Olympics. The first set concerns strategic lessons for the British government
to learn about strategy and performance in the coming post-Brexit world. The
second set concerns how Britain’s European partners deal with Britain in the
coming Brexit negotiations.

First, the
strategic lessons for Britain. The decision to improve Britain’s Olympic
performance was utterly political. In 1996 at the Atlanta Olympics Britain
finished thirty-second in the medals table with a paltry single gold medal. The
nation of plucky losers had again pluckily lost. Enough was enough! When Tony
Blair came to power in 1997 his attempt to recast Britain as ‘Cool Britannia’
(remember that?) led to some £300 million of mainly lottery money being
invested in British elite athletes to improve Britain’s Olympic performance.

This strategy
was bolstered in 2005 when London was awarded what was to become perhaps the
most successful Olympics in the modern era. The London Olympic Park was
delivered on time and to budget with a clear legacy plan enshrined at the core
of a well-designed and well-implemented strategy. Although the aim to get more
people engaged in sport has proven slightly more challenging, particularly for
younger generations bought up on computer games that an oldie like me, brought
up on the playing fields of sporting battle and Oxford, does not get.

There are six
specific lessons for the British government. The first lesson is an old one.
When in a political corner the British remain very good at fighting their way out
of it. Second, given a good strategy and belief in an objective Britain is very
good at delivering. Third, Britain succeeded at both the London and Rio
Olympics by going out and hiring the best coaches irrespective of from where
they came. Fourth, the elite performance programmes for British athletes were utterly
ruthless funding only those people and sports who continually delivered. Fifth,
Britain set out to achieve Olympic success for itself, not to diminish anybody
else. Sixth, Britain’s exit from the EU
must be for Britain and not against ‘Europe’. Indeed, Brexit must not be about
leaving the EU, but re-building Britain’s place in the world as a top five
economy and military power (which Britain will need).

Second, the lessons
for Britain’s European partners in managing divergence; if Brexit is FOR
Britain, further European integration must be FOR ‘Europe’, and not AGAINST
Britain. This morning Francois Hollande, Angela Merkel and Matteo Renzi will
meet on the tiny Italian island of Ventotene. The symbolism could not be more
pointed. As Britain basks in a patriotic, nation-affirming Olympic moment the
leaders of what is soon to be the rump EU will endeavour to recapture the
spirit of European integration the loss of which Brexit has highlighted. Divergence
is inevitable but how that divergence is managed will shape the future of
Europe.

In 1941,
whilst imprisoned by Mussolini, Ernesto Rossi and Altieri Spinelli wrote “The
Manifesto of Ventotene”, which called for the creation of a European federal
state. Today, the the three leaders will
need to consider how to promote further integration without punishing the
British for a democratic choice to reject it. It is a serious point because
such is the extent of pan-European euro-scepticism that failure could see the entire
current crop of European leaders swept aside weakening an already pitifully
weak Europe at a dangerous strategic moment. The pressure to ‘punish’ Britain
will be hard to resist. The greatest fear in Brussels is that the British
actually make a success of Brexit.

Therefore, it
is time for cool heads all round. Let Britain enjoy its moment of Olympic glory
with the clear understanding all round it is sport, not some alternative metaphor
for war. The three leaders on Ventotene could help set the tone for the
forthcoming Brexit negotiations and political reconciliation by jointly congratulating
Britain on its Olympic success, even if it is through gritted teeth. In return Britain must re-commit itself to
being a good partner. That means first and foremost an absolute British
commitment to the security and defence of Europe in the twenty-first century.

The
alternative is one in which all Europeans lose. Before the great battles with
France of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries English and Welsh longbowmen,
armed with the decisive strategic weapon of the age, would stand before ranks
of French knights holding up the two arrow-pulling forefingers of the left hand
to demonstrate their defiance and their firepower. Even today ‘two fingers’ is
a mark of English defiance and there will be part of the English character this
morning that sees Olympic success as ‘two-fingers’ to those who say Britain
cannot thrive outside of the EU. That sentiment must be resisted and its further
stoking avoided – Britain is too important to Europe and Europe too important
to Britain for a serious set of negotiations to be based on defiance…on either
side.

So no, I am
not going to make a spurious connection between British sporting excellence and
national superiority, because there is none, except perhaps for a moment in the
organisation of some Olympic sports (football?). However, I am going to enjoy a
bloody good, momentary gloat!

Wednesday, 17 August 2016

“We
have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the
ground, that a red line for us is if we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical
weapons moving around or being utilised. That would change my calculus. That
would change my calculation”.

President Barack
Obama, August 2012

Alphen, Netherlands. 17 August.
To be effective statecraft must consider all options if strategy is to realise
outcomes. Yesterday, at least nine civilians were killed in Aleppo, and others
died on the outskirts of Damascus, as a result of the regime’s use of barrel
bombs filled with life-crushing chemicals. Yesterday’s victims, alive when I
had breakfast, now join the at least 300,000 who have perished in Syria’s
ghastly war. Last week I argued in this blog that if the West is not prepared
to do anything more than write hand-wringing op-eds in well-known newspapers
then it must talk to Assad and his Russian backers. Indeed, for Assad and his
backers are responsible for most of the killing in Syria. However, what would
induce Assad and Putin to talk given they clearly believe they are winning and can
act with impunity?

In fact Assad, Putin and their
Iranian allies are not winning the Syrian war which is in stalemate. Even with limited
Russian support the regime in Damascus is not strong enough to win. However, as long as
Russia and Iran continue to back Bashar Assad he cannot lose. The stalemate is made worse by a weak and incompetent West. Like the Grand Old Duke of York of old in 2013 President Obama marched his troops and those of other Western powers up
the hill of ill-considered action, only to promptly march them down again. Today, Assad and Putin are betting the US will
take no action beyond counter-ISIS missions before the November US presidential
elections.

So, what did President Obama mean
by ‘red lines’ back in 2012? The White House said that if the regime or
others used chemical weapons against civilians the US would deem the regime to
have crossed a red line. It is not too late even now to reinvest those ‘red
lines’ with presidential political capital by warning Assad that the red-lines are still in place. In other words, if the regime continues to
use barrel bombs against Syria's civilian population filled with chlorine, napalm and other chemicals as part of a truly
deadly fuel-air mix there will be
consequences…and mean it.

What could be the consequences?
Between 1991 and 2003 America and Britain declared and enforced no fly zones
over Iraq to protect the Kurdish and Shia Arab peoples in Iraq from the
vengeful actions of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad. Over that period both
the Americans and British undertook air and missile strikes against Iraqi military
targets to deter, prevent and punish Saddam.

What would the no fly zones
restrict? It is now time to establish no fly zones over all Syrian cities. To
ensure proportionality the American-led coalition could first agree that
current air operations over Syria against ISIS would be expanded to attacks on the
slow-moving regime helicopters entering self-declared zones and which are responsible for carrying up to eight
barrel bombs per mission. If that fails to deter the regime following due
warning a complete no fly zone could then be established banning all aircraft
from the zones.

How would the no fly zones be
enforced? Given President Erdogan’s rapprochement with Moscow it is unlikely
that he would permit the use of Turkey’s Incirlik air base to enforce the no
fly zones. Therefore, RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus would need to be the hub for air operations,
reinforced by the US Sixth Fleet and the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. At present there is
no US fleet carrier in the Mediterranean but operations could also be launched
from the Gulf. The ability of the West to undertake such operations will be
significantly enhanced over the next few years by the commissioning of the two
large British aircraft carriers HMS Queen
Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.

Why would no fly zones force
Assad to talk? First, it would flush the Russian role out into the open and
force Moscow to make a choice. Last week Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov
suggested Russia and the US were close to undertaking joint actions over Aleppo.
If this is the case ‘joint actions’ could only take place if the Russian’s
themselves stop applying the tactics of Grozny to Aleppo. Second, Western
action would remind Assad just how fickle Russia’s support for him actually is.
If Moscow was to be offered a deal that would preserve Russian influence in the region
without Bashar Assad he would be dropped by Putin faster than an empty vodka
bottle in a Russian government dacha.
Third, commitment to no fly zones would at last communicate not only Western
resolve, but a reasoned course of Western action. Faced with a West that is finally
resolved to act Assad would talk and the stuttering Geneva talks might finally begin
to make headway.

This week Assad flew several
Mi-24 Hind helicopters right through
President Obama’s red lines. It is time for the West to block barrel bomb Bashar
and for President Obama to step up to his own lines.

Wednesday, 10 August 2016

“In
the end, more than freedom, they wanted security.They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost
it all – security, comfort, and freedom.When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society
to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from
responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”

Edward
Gibbon“Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire”

Alphen, Netherlands. 10 August. The West
is in trouble. Whatever one might think about President Erdogan’s post-coup
power grab he understands the ebb and flow of power. This week Erdogan went to
St Petersburg to meet Russia’s President Putin less than a year after Turkish aircraft
shot down a Russian plane. The implications of the trip are clear; given
Turkey’s difficult geopolitical and geographic position Ankara’s best option is
to back the ascendant power. Ever since Turkey joined NATO in 1952 Ankara has
taken the view that alliance with the West affords Turkey the best chance of
security. That assumption would appear to be changing. Why?

There are many afflictions undermining the
power and influence of the contemporary West. The very fact that an insurgent
such as Donald Trump is so close to the White House is already profoundly
shaking the confidence of America’s allies and partners in the value of US
leadership. The obsession of European leaders with Project Europe at the expense of all else is doing real damage to
the West’s strategic brand. It is now obvious that the EU far from aggregating
European power on the world stage is accelerating the retreat of Europeans into
an obsession with values and legalism. However, it is the focus of to many elites in the West on
short-term political and/or financial gratification at the expense of long-term
strategic probity that is doing the real damage.

Let me highlight the point by citing two examples of this problem
over the past week or so from my own country Britain; the
stalled deal with China to build a new nuclear power-station, and a leaked report
on the relative capabilities of British and Russian armed forces.

Last week new British Prime Minister
Theresa May ordered a review of a deal under which China would have funded the construction
of an as yet untested French-designed nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in
return for China being able to build another showcase reactor at Bradwell in Essex.This desperate deal was the brainchild
of the strategically-illiterate Cameron-Osborne duopoly.

The fact that such a deal could have ever
been contemplated reflects the political stupidity of what passes for British
energy policy. When I was a kid I used to work in a pub at Oldbury-on-Severn
right next to a nuclear power station at a time when Britain was the world
leader in civil nuclear power. However, the ‘power’ of the green lobby, and the
political obsession of several governments with renewables when it was clear
such technologies could never meet Britain’s energy needs led Britain down an
energy dead-end. It also highlighted the cost of the 'little politics at the expense
of big strategy' problem that has dogged Britain for years.

As for China there is nothing in Beijing’s
behaviour of late in the South and East China Seas or in the levels of Chinese
state cyber-hacking or Chinese espionage that would suggest Beijing is ever
going to be a real strategic partner of either Britain or the West. London must
understand that Chinese state funding for such projects is only undertaken as
part of what Beijing perceives as Chinese state, i.e. geopolitical interests.
What are Chinese interests? To weaken Britain’s ability to act as an
independent strategic actor by imposing a level of British dependence on China,
and in particular to weaken London’s still vital strategic partnership with the United
States.

Even on commercial grounds this deal is
madness, on strategic grounds it is full on insanity. To then
compound the problem by giving an illiberal power such as China unheralded and
utterly unwarranted access to key components of Britain’s critical nuclear
energy infrastructure simply demonstrates the retreat from sound ‘strategy-fying’
which has afflicted London for far too long.

And then there is Russia. This morning a
leaked report from the British Army’s Land
Warfare Centre publicly confirmed something of which I have been aware of
for some time – Russian forces could now out-think, out-manouevre, and out-fight British and all other European forces. General Sir Richard
Shirreff, NATO’s former military No. 2, and for whom I had the honour of working briefly when he was commander of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, is a friend and colleague. He was
attacked by London’s chattering classes earlier this year for publishing a book
entitled 2017: War with Russia.His assailants had clearly not read the book.

What is really interesting was
why Shirreff was attacked. The general thrust of the criticism seemed to be that Shirreff was a warmongering
general who was bothering people with an uncomfortable reality and that he
really did not understand that the idea of war has been banished because it is
neither politically-correct nor politically-convenient. Indeed, the abuse, for
that is what much if it was, was little more than strategic and political
decadence from a political and intellectual class in London too many of whom seem unwilling or unable
to comprehend that really, really bad things can still happen in world affairs. And, that it will fall to states like Britain to stop it and if it happens do
something about it. Syria?

So, decline and fall? Not quite. The good
news is that Prime Minister May seems to have adopted a far more sober view of
British strategic interests than the strategically-illiterate Cameron and the
mercantilist Osborne. The fact that the British Army is beginning to properly
address the issue of relative power suggests strategic realism might be returning.
And, Prime Minister May is surely right to review the Hinkley Point deal and
hopefully kill it; the French reactor does not work, the Chinese must not be
able to use energy as a geopolitical lever on Britain, and the British taxpayer
is being screwed by both.

It is time the West got a strategic grip
and that can only happen when leading powers like Britain start again to put strategy before politics. Then the likes of Turkey will again believe that their security
can only be afforded by allying with the liberal powers against the illiberal
powers for that is the choice all of us must now make.

Wednesday, 3 August 2016

Alphen, Netherlands. 3 August.
August always fills me with geopolitical foreboding. With the democracies on
vacation it is this month that is traditionally the moment for dirty
geopolitics. This August is doubly concerning because it coincides with the
Brazil Olympics. True to form our old friend Vladimir Putin is using both to
ruthlessly pursue his strategic ends in Syria. Remember the Beijing Olympics
back in 2008 when he invaded Georgia? This August he is applying the same
tactics against Aleppo that he used against Grozny during the two Chechen Wars.
The shooting down of a Russian Air Force helicopter some 8 km from where a
barrel bomb had just been dropped is eerily reminiscent of the destruction of
Grozny. As is the offer to ‘assist’ with humanitarian efforts, but only so long
as such efforts are under the complete control of both Damascus and Moscow.

What is the West doing about it? Next
to nothing. Limited coalition raids are being mounted against ISIS targets, but
nothing to resolve the situation in Syria. There was an interesting piece in
the British digital newspaper The
Independent last week by Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders. Sad to say
it was all too typical of the ‘something must be done, but not too much, and
not by me’ nonsense beloved of Europe’s handwringing, strategically-inept
political elite.

Entitled Aleppo must not become synonymous with global inaction the title
was carefully worded, particularly the use of the phrase, ‘global inaction’. Of
course, Koenders should really have said ‘Western inaction’ or to be more
precise ‘European inaction’. Why? Because as a foreign minister he knows all
too well that without UN Security Council agreement ‘global’ action is a
non-starter. Yes, the piece likens Aleppo to Srebrenica and the dark chapter in
UN and Dutch peacekeeping when Dutchbat
permitted the Bosnian Serbs to murder thousands of Bosnian Muslims. Yes, Koenders
makes the valid point that most Syrians want to live neither under the
murderous Caliphate nor under the equally murderous Assad regime, and their
cynical Russian and Iranian backers who see the Syrian people as no more than
very small pawns in a great geopolitical game.

What he suggests as a solution is
both clever and disingenuous. Koenders calls for a stepped up campaign against
ISIS and a much greater humanitarian effort. However, what he wilfully fails to
point out in the piece is that in Syria humanitarian action cannot be effective
without strategic action. In other words, any alleviation of suffering and/or
defeat of ISIS is not possible without either confronting Russia and removing
Assad, or accommodating Russia and talking to Assad. It is a stark choice that
has been obvious for some time but which Koenders and his fellow leaders have
pretended they need not make.

Confronting Russia and Assad at
this stage would require the West to threaten a major military land, sea intervention,
involving both Western and Arab forces. That is not going to happen. Turkey is
now close to being a failed state and no longer a sound base from which to
launch such an assault. President Obama is a lame duck president who can at
best order a few air strikes against ISIS in Libya. Europe has become strategic
prey and abandoned all pretence of engaging danger at distance and simply waits
these days for danger to come to Europe, mitigate the effects, and/or pretend
no danger exists.

Thus, there is only the
alternative? If the West/Europe is not prepared to act against Assad and Putin
it must talk to Assad and Putin if there is to be any chance of an alleviation
of the suffering of the Syrian people. There are many factors that have led
Syria to this point but Western, in particular European, weakness is a major
factor. Sadly, it is weakness typified by a European political elite of which
Koenders is a part.

So, as America blusters the
summer away in what is perhaps the worst US general election in American history,
and Europe slumbers on what is now a permanent strategic vacation Assad and
Putin will continue to act with impunity. No amount of hand-wringing articles
by impotent foreign ministers from small European states who have decimated
their own ability to influence big, dangerous events will matter a jot.

Let me be clear; Syria is the new
Chechnya and Aleppo is the new Grozny. In the two Chechen wars Putin believed
that the only way to break the secessionist movement was to destroy Grozny.
Assad, with Russian backing, is now determined to wipe Aleppo out. And, like
Chechnya, both Assad and Putin will give the West just enough excuse to turn
away and do nothing.

The consequences? Many thousands
more will die and in October at the latest President Erdogan of Turkey will
abrogate the March 2016 deal with the EU and open the floodgates to hundreds of
thousands of refugees seeking to escape to Europe. Then, Europe will again see
the folly of being too weak to stop what is happening in Syria.

About Me

Julian Lindley-French is Senior Fellow of the Institute of Statecraft, Director of Europa Analytica & Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow, National Defense University, Washington DC. An internationally-recognised strategic analyst, advisor and author he was formerly Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy at the Netherlands Defence Academy,and Special Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Leiden. He is a Fellow of Respublica in London, and a member of the Strategic Advisory Group of the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington.
Latest books: The Oxford Handbook on War 2014 (Paperback) (2014; 709 pages). (Oxford: Oxford University Press) & "Little Britain? Twenty-First Strategy for a Middling European Power". (www.amazon.com)
The Friendly-Clinch Health Warning: The views contained herein are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any institution.